Mayor: 3 dead, 10 missing in explosion

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"1644 Park Avenue appears not to be there anymore," a police spokesman says

The explosion rattles "a community in transition"

Some thought it was a bomb. Others thought it was the commuter train that runs behind their buildings jumping the tracks.

It shook upper Manhattan for blocks -- and when it was over, a five-story apartment building and its neighbor were gone.

After Wednesday morning's deadly building explosion in East Harlem, squads of firefighters dug through piles of shattered bricks and beams. Ladder trucks sprayed water into the gap where the buildings once stood. As Detective Martin Speechly, a New York police spokesman, put it: "1644 Park Avenue appears not to be there anymore."

Along with that five-story apartment building, with a Latino evangelical church on the first floor, a neighboring piano store and the four floors above it collapsed in the blast.

One nearby resident, Angelica Avila, told CNN she was trapped in her apartment down the block for a short time afterward. Her stepmother had to sneak in through the back to try and open the door for her, she said.

Photos:Explosion destroys East Harlem buildings

Photos:Explosion destroys East Harlem buildings

Explosion destroys East Harlem buildings – Rubble is seen on Friday, March 14, two days after an explosion leveled two apartment buildings in the East Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, injuring dozens and killing at least eight people. Though authorities have said a gas leak may have triggered the explosion, Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters Thursday that the official cause was under investigation.

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Photos:Explosion destroys East Harlem buildings

Explosion destroys East Harlem buildings – Firefighters look over what remains of a building affected by the explosion on March 14.

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Photos:Explosion destroys East Harlem buildings

Explosion destroys East Harlem buildings – A vehicle crushed by debris from the building explosion is seen on the street.

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Photos:Explosion destroys East Harlem buildings

Explosion destroys East Harlem buildings – An excavator removes debris on Thursday, March 13, from the site of a massive explosion.

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Photos:Explosion destroys East Harlem buildings

Explosion destroys East Harlem buildings – People protect their faces from dust on March 13.

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Photos:Explosion destroys East Harlem buildings

Explosion destroys East Harlem buildings – Police officers stand near the site of the explosion on March 13.

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Photos:Explosion destroys East Harlem buildings

Explosion destroys East Harlem buildings – Smoke fills 116th Street as a stretcher is wheeled toward the site of the explosion on March 13.

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Photos:Explosion destroys East Harlem buildings

Explosion destroys East Harlem buildings – Heavy smoke rises from the debris on Wednesday, March 12.

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Photos:Explosion destroys East Harlem buildings

Explosion destroys East Harlem buildings – Medics put a person into an ambulance at the scene of the explosion on March 12.

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Explosion destroys East Harlem buildings – Water is sprayed on smoldering debris close to the scene of the building collapse.

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Explosion destroys East Harlem buildings – A police officer covers his face with a mask to protect himself from the smoke.

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Explosion destroys East Harlem buildings – New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio speaks during a news conference. "This is a tragedy of the worst kind," he said, "because there was no indication in time to save people."

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Photos:Explosion destroys East Harlem buildings

Explosion destroys East Harlem buildings – New York firefighters battle the fire near 116th Street and Park Avenue, once the heart of the city's large Puerto Rican community.

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Photos:Explosion destroys East Harlem buildings

Explosion destroys East Harlem buildings – Firefighters work to contain the fire. The firefighters responding to a gas leak report barely missed the blast, Fire Commissioner Salvatore Cassano said: "If we were here five minutes earlier, we may have had some fatalities among firefighters."

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"My neighbors came banging on my door. I guess they were evacuating the building, and I couldn't get out -- my door was jammed," she said. "Everything off my windowsill fell, and I guess the impact of the explosion jammed the door as well."

Something similar happened to Aisha Watts, who had just returned to her apartment in one of the adjoining buildings after taking her children to school. Then the windows broke out, and "the walls came tumbling down," Watts said.

A neighbor helped her out of her apartment, because the door was stuck in its frame. And she and her neighbors will have to find someplace else to stay temporarily.

"We can't go back for the next couple of days," Watts said.

Three blocks away, the blast knocked Klay Williams off his feet as he brushed his teeth before work. He told CNN's sister network HLN that his first thoughts were a possible terrorist attack, "as New Yorkers, we tend to do," or maybe a derailment of the nearby Metro-North commuter line.

"I went to my back window, because I'm on the very top floor," he said. Looking down the street, he saw "a bunch of people just running, as if they were running towards something."

Authorities suspect the explosion was the result of a gas leak reported a short time before.

Seven blocks away, Eric Boise could feel his apartment shake and saw others "pouring out of the apartment buildings at 116th and Madison Avenue." He followed himself, watching as firefighters hauled gurneys into the wall of smoke to bring out the wounded.

"I can see in front of me about 50 feet up until the explosion, and then it gets pretty thick," Boise told CNN.

Michael Mowatt-Wynn, the head of the Harlem & the Heights Historical Society, called the surrounding area "a community in transition." Its population of 100,000-plus was once largely Italian. In the late 1950s, large numbers of Puerto Ricans moved in -- in part because of the similarities between their native Spanish and the Italian still spoken there.

The 1990s brought a growing Mexican population, and now the area is being gentrified, Mowatt-Wynn said. It's home to a lot of mom-and-pop businesses and restaurants, and the City University of New York-Hunter College is building a new dormitory in the area, he said.

The full toll was uncertain early Wednesday afternoon, but at least three people had died, dozens were hurt and about 10 were unaccounted for. The suspected cause was a gas leak that had been reported only 15 minutes before the explosion, Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters.

"This is a tragedy of the worst kind, because there was no indication in time to save people," he said.

Among the missing was 67-year-old Carmen Tanco, whose nieces and godson awaited word near the ruins of her building. Liz Robinson said the family had given her aunt's name to the office of her city councilwoman, which was canvassing hospitals to track down the injured -- "and she's still not on any of those lists."

"She's a dedicated worker. She works at a doctor's office for many years now. So they're worried as well," Robinson said. "They haven't heard from her. Today's her assigned day off."

Another niece, Marisela Frias, said her "sassy, spicy" aunt rarely fails to answer her phone -- "and if she misses it because she didn't get to it in time, she calls me right back."

"I'm hoping, thinking that the reason she hasn't been in one of the lists is because she's so involved helping somebody else that was injured from the building -- that she hasn't taken toll to herself because that's how she is," Frias said.